When is it Enough?
by Captain Ash
Summary: I laid cold and bleeding, surrounded by Triple Threat Triads. The gangsters closed in on me as I laughed mirthlessly at the events that lead me to this situation. And to think it had started with something so simple... Good job Mako... Good job.
1. Prologue

When is it Enough?

Legend of Korra and all related characters belong to Nickelodeon

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_PROLOGUE_

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**_I laid cold and bleeding, surrounded by Triple Threat Triads. The gangsters closed in on me as I laughed mirthlessly at the events that lead me to this situation. And to think it had started with something so simple... Good job Mako... Good job._**

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Mako laid awake in his bed. He had lost both Korra and Asami due in no small part to his own stupidity. He had tried to have his cake and eat it too, but like all those before him failed miserably. Now he was alone, Bolin having moved out shortly afterward once Mako had allowed his self pity to overtake him.

_'Sorry bro, I just can't stand to see you like this. I'm only a block over if you need me.'_ That is what Bolin had said. Mako knew he had allowed himself to go downhill, but just couldn't find the will to do anything about it. After all, a broken heart needs time to mend. His face was covered in a thick stubble and given a month or two he would have a pretty thick beard. His usually clean cut hair was disheveled and a bit longer than normal. Chief Beifong had found him a job in the records department, as he was in no shape mentally to be a real cop in his condition. He had been brutalizing criminals, letting his anger at his own failings out on them, which lead to his demotion.

All this did was make Mako even more miserable. He got up out of bed and reached under it, feeling for something. He pulled out a medium sized brown box and sat down on the bed with it. It was filled with various nick-knacks and photographs. Some were old pictures of his parents, and some were recent ones of him and Korra and of him and Asami. He gave a heavy sigh as he looked through the old photos, but something outside startled him into dropping the box. The contents spilled out, causing the old pictures, a few old toys, and something else to fall out. Mako looked down and saw an exact replica of the Blue Spirit mask, the one the famous outlaw wore. His father had bought him the mask one day at a carnival and it had been a treasured keepsake. Mako then turned his attention back to the noise which had startled him in the first place.

The firebender looked out his window to the alleyway down below and saw a pair of muggers, brandishing a pair of daggers at a young girl. Mako went to run down to the alley, but tripped over the smiling mask on the floor. He growled, but found himself looking at it intently. Without even thinking he found himself putting it on and continued to rush down stairs, clad only in the mask, a tank-top, and an old pair of sweat pants.

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"Come on baby! Just come with us and we'll be real gentle like." One of the thugs said as his larger partner walked ever closer. Suddenly his partner's arm was engulfed in flames, causing him to scream in agony. Suddenly he found himself on the ground, being repeatedly punched in the face by a masked man. The other man tried to help, but received a severely burned leg for his trouble. Once the masked man was done with the larger of the two, he began to mercilessly beat the smaller man. Blood caked the masked man's knuckles as he finally stopped when the other man ceased moving. He looked to the girl to make sure she was okay, then walked down into the alleyway, fading into the shadows.

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	2. Lawbreakers

When is it Enough?

Legend of Korra and all related characters belong to Nickelodeon

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As Mako walked into his small bathroom he washed the blood from his hands. Suddenly all the anger he felt at himself was gone and replaced with a sense of elation, a profound happiness. His heart was still pounding, his blood racing, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He looked up in the mirror and jumped slightly. He was still wearing the mask. He started to take it off but stopped himself. Mako looked long and thoughtfully at the blue mask on his face, the unnerving smile, the soulless black voids of the eye-holes that hid his own completely. It was like he was a different person. Granted that was the purpose of a mask, but Mako had never thought about how very different it could be.

Mako soon found himself again rummaging through his old belongings, this time looking in his closet. He looked around far to the back and found his old beikou stick, a sport Mako had tried to break into once during the Pro-Bending League's off season. He liked the roughness and at times violent nature of the game if he was honest with himself, but he was never all that good at it. He kept the stick though as a memento. Looking down at it Mako got a feel for it in his hands, the stick itself being long enough for the flat almost blade-like wooden head of it to reach his feet and the end of it up to his chin. He swung it around a little, feeling the weight of it. He knew he was really out of it as even he didn't know why he was doing this.

Mako sat the stick down on his bed and took off the mask, placing it down on the bed next to him. He leaned over and turned on his radio, tuning it to the 24 hour news broadcast station. Mako put his head in his hands sighing as he listened to the news anchor drone on and on about rising crime rates in the seedier neighborhoods, listing them off and Mako's current neighborhood being one of them.

_"And it's not just the usual Triads you have to worry about folks, a new group is making a power play, calling themselves the Zise Dragons. They're current list of crimes include vandalism, arson, theft, murder, and willful destruction of public..."_

Mako switched off the radio and took a deep breath. He looked down at the mask and thought about what he did not more than 10 minutes ago. He saved a woman's life and beat up a couple of thugs. He let loose on them in a primal, almost animalistic way, giving them no mercy or quarter.

_'It felt... good.'_ Mako thought as he kept his eyes fixated on the mask that he now had sitting in his lap, it's smiling visage staring right back at him. When he wore this mask he felt free, free to do whatever he wanted, he knew this had to be the reason he was so brutal on those thugs from before. When he wore the mask he felt a feeling of power, like he was separated from what made him vulnerable since no one could know who he was. He remembered how Amon wore a mask and he never understood it before, but now he did. Behind a mask you can be anyone or anything.

Mako had an epiphany. He was suspended from real police work, he practically wrecked anything he touched be it relationships or his job. If he wrecked anything he touched, then maybe that applied to criminal skulls. He stood up and went to his closet, grabbing an old dark green coat and putting it on and his old pair of work boots. He put on the mask and grabbed his beikou stick. He passed by the mirror next to his door and stopped. Mako looked at the blue of the mask and shook his head. He went to his small kitchenette and opened his sink cabinet. He pulled out some solvent and began to wash the mask, peeling off the blue paint. He dried it off and looked at the now bright white mask.

"No way am I going to be labeled a copycat." Mako muttered to himself as he put on the mask. He was about to go out his door, but stopped.

"Window might be better." He said to himself as he opened his window and went out the fire escape.

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"Alright kid, just join up with us and you get to keep your fingers!" A man with a purple dragon tattoo on his face said as he brandished a knife toward a 12 year old boy. The man was surrounded by 5 others who had the boy cornered in an alley. They were members of the Zise Dragons

"HEY SCUZZBUCKETS!" A voice called out. The Zise Dragons looked down to the other end of the alley and saw a man in a bone-white smiling mask looking at them, wearing a green coat, sweat pants, and held a beikou stick in his hands. The leader of the group motioned for his cronies to make sure the boy didn't run as he walked up to the masked interloper.

"And, what are _you_ supposed to be?" The leader of the band of thugs said as he got right up in the masked man's face. Suddenly the masked man shot his hand up at the streetlight above them them and a bolt of fire busted it, knocking out the light as the gang members could then only hear their leader screaming in agony, getting quick flashes of light to what was happening as the tattooed man tried to firebend at his attacker in futility. Suddenly their leader was thrown back at them, a blood mess. The masked man stepped out of the shadow and then rushed toward the stunned gang.

He bashed one of them in the face with his stick, knocking them out along with several of their teeth. One of the members tried to waterbend at him, but was met with a flaming fist to the gut for his trouble, followed by a harsh swipe across the face with the masked marauder's stick. The other three tried to rush him, but he sent a wave of fire at their feet and leaped toward them, tackling one of them and then flipping them over and sending them flying into the wall head first. He capitalized by grabbing the man's head and slamming it harder into the brick wall a couple of more times.

The last two had recovered and the masked man quickly used his stick to break one of their knees and sent a fiery fist to his face, burning it severely. The last man tried to run away, but the masked man threw his stick at his legs and tripped him up. The masked man then began to break the other's man's arm and picked up his stick to constantly pummel the man. The bloodied man twitched in pain as the masked man looked down at him. He picked him up by the scruff of his shirt and looked him dead in the eye.

"The name's... Kai-Xi, yeah that's it... I own these streets. When you get to jail, tell all your dirty little lawbreaker friends that they ain't welcome here anymore. I catch you out here doing this crap again Scuzzbucket? You don't go to jail." The masked man said as he threw the scum down on the ground. He looked to see the kid now starting to run off, getting over his shock.

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Mako sat on a rooftop, his mask sitting on top of his head, with a smile on his face.

"I could get used to this."

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**To answer a few things. Kai-Xi(Pronounced Kai-She) is the Chinese spelling of the name Casey and the name Casey means "vigilant" or "watchful" which is fitting. I would have gone with the actual Chinese word for vigilant, but it didn't sound as cool. **

**Beikou is actually a Chinese game VERY similar to hockey, more specifically field hockey. In this instance Mako's beikou stick looks like a hockey stick.**

**Can you guess who Mako is based on in this? **


End file.
